Ełcka Kolej Wąskotorowa
| Ełcka Kolej Wąskotorowa | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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 Museum train
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| Route length: | 48 km | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gauge : | 1000 mm, from 1951: 750 mm | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Ełcka Kolej Wąskotorowa (formerly Ełcka Kolej Dojazdowa , Lycker Kleinbahnen ) is a narrow-gauge railway with a gauge of 750 mm in Poland in the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship or in the former East Prussia .
history
Lycker Kleinbahnen
In the years 1868 to 1885, a railway junction was established in the East Prussian district town of Lyck , which opened up the localities in the area. However, after the turn of the century, there was still no connection to the rail network in the eastern part of the district, which extended to the border to Russian Poland.
This gap should be closed by the Lycker Kleinbahnen-AG . It was founded by the Prussian state, the province of East Prussia, the Lyck district and the railway construction company Lenz & Co GmbH .
The first route led from the district town with over 13,000 inhabitants at the time via Klein Lasken and Borzymmen ( Borzymy in Polish ) to the border village Thurowen ( Turowo in Polish ), was 38 kilometers long and laid out in meter gauge. On October 23, 1913, the first section to Borschimmen (Borzymmen) (25 km) was opened, the second was still under construction at the beginning of the First World War. Between November 1914 and February 1915 there was great destruction, the vehicles were almost completely destroyed or transported to Russia. In the spring of 1915, work was resumed and on December 1, 1915, the line could be put into operation with new equipment. Also on October 23, 1913, a branch line from Klein Lasken ( Polish: Laski Małe ) to Sawadden ( Polish: Zawady-Tworki ) was added. After the reconstruction, modern Scharfenberg couplings were introduced.
The management was transferred to the Ostdeutsche Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft (ODEG) in Königsberg , which had acquired the shares of Lenz & Co in the railway.
On June 30, 1924, the Lycker Kleinbahnen were incorporated into the Insterburger Kleinbahn-AG , which was then called Ostpreußische Kleinbahnen AG .
After 1945
At the end of the Second World War , the catchment area of the Poland line was added and the narrow-gauge railway was incorporated into the Polish State Railways (PKP). The operation was initially resumed with two pairs of trains per branch line, which complemented each other on the jointly traveled section Ełk - Laski Małe .
In 1950 the PKP made the decision to standardize the gauge of its narrow-gauge lines to 750 mm. As a result, this route was also changed from 1000 to 750 mm in 1951. The train service was later expanded to include up to four pairs of trains per branch line.
The railway line was elevated to a technical monument on September 30, 1991, but this could not prevent the cessation of traffic.
On April 1, 2001, passenger traffic on the Laski Małe – Zawady-Tworki branch line ended, while only one pair of trains ran on the Ełk – Turowo main line. This remaining operation ended on June 14, 2001.
After cessation of operations on all Polish narrow-gauge railways in autumn 2001, the Ełcka Kolej Dojazdowa was taken over by the city of Ełk on January 1, 2002. Since then, the railway has been known as Ełcka Kolej Wąskotorowa . In the summer there is regular tourist traffic on the Ełk – Sypitki section.
vehicles
When operations began, there were four 1'B wheel arrangement locomotives, eight passenger cars, two mail / baggage cars and 36 freight cars. In 1913 four 1'B locomotives were delivered by Jung . During the fighting in 1914/1915, the operating resources also suffered. Some of the locomotives were probably shipped to Poland and later to Russia. In 1915, two more locomotives, identical to those delivered in 1913, were purchased from Jung. In 1916 and 1920, a total of three further locomotives with a 1'C wheel arrangement were delivered, similar to the PKB No. 21 to 25 locomotives delivered to the Pillkaller Kleinbahn . In 1939 these five steam locomotives, nine passenger cars, two pack wagons and 37 freight cars were available. After the gauge change, all five locomotives were used on other Polish meter-gauge railways. The former locomotive 5 delivered in 1920, last called Ty6-3326, was parked in 1978 and has been optically refurbished in the Sochaczew Railway Museum in Warsaw since 2010.
After re-gauging to 750 mm, locomotives of the Px48 series were used. Typical for the Ełcka Kolej Dojazdowa was the use of diesel locomotives of the PKP series Lyd1 , which came into use from 1967 and were used for passenger trains. From 1987 the Ełcka Kolej Dojazdowa received passenger cars of the type “Bxhpi” from Romanian production with the manufacturer designation “A208P”. It was not until 1996 that railcars of the MBxd2 series came to Ełk after operations on the Gdańska Kolej Dojazdowa and Opalenicka Kolej Dojazdowa ceased .
literature
- Siegfried Bufe (Ed.): Railways in West and East Prussia . Bufe-Fachbuch-Verlag, Egglham 1986, ISBN 3-922138-24-1 , ( Ostdeutsche Eisenbahnen 1).
- Siegfried Lenz , who was born in Lyck, created a literary monument for the small train in the anthology So tender was Suleyken with the short story A small train called Popp
Individual evidence
- ↑ Kolej wąskotorowa. Historia. muzeum.elk.pl, accessed on January 28, 2018 (Polish).
- ↑ Jörg Petzold: The SPREEWALD locomotive and its "sisters" . In: The Museum Railway . No. 3 , 2017, ISSN 0936-4609 , p. 34 .
- ↑ Jörg Petzold: The SPREEWALD locomotive and its "sisters" . In: The Museum Railway . No. 3 , 2017, ISSN 0936-4609 , p. 38 .
- ↑ Ełk / Lyck: Experience Masuria with the small train called Popp
Web links
- Kolej wąskotorowa. Retrieved January 28, 2018 (Polish).